Harper

Saturday March 16, 2019

Someone astute once said "history repeats itself--the first as tragedy and then as farce." Oh, yes, it was Karl Marx in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. Quite relevant to the subject.

I have followed the beginning of the 2020 presidential campaign undecided whether to cry or laugh. That is to say, I am undecided whether to view the unfolding season as a tragic or farcical circumstance.

Of particular agony is the back-and-forth between President Trump and his sycophants on the one side and the nominal Democratic wunderkind AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for those living on another planet) on the other. Trumpers label her as a dangerous socialist and vow to defend America against a resurgence of socialism. AOC returns the volley by declaring that she is, indeed a socialist, and the socialistic redistribution of billionaire fortune is what's best for the United States. Mainstream Democrats are terrified that AOC and her Millennial fans will hijack the 2020 primary campaign and once again allow the Democrats to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.

Between AOC and The Donald, I doubt that a single page of the writings of Karl Marx, V.I. Lenin, or Mao Zedong have been read and digested.read on...

Wednesday May 2, 2018

British government official agencies are the patrons, managers and funders of the White Helmets, who have been the go-to source for the mainstream Western media reporting on the ongoing Syrian war. For good measure, the U.S. State Department's Agency for International Development (USAID) has kicked in $23 million to finance Mayday Rescue, the cutout between the White Helmets and the British Ministry of Defense, the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and 10 Downing Street. This is all a matter of public record, yet no Western major media outlet has bothered to include these "data points" in their lavish coverage of the White Helmets.read on...

Sunday March 9, 2014

General Martin Dempsey, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a lengthy interview to Judy Woodruff on Friday night's PBS News Hour and delivered a carefully balanced picture of how the U.S. military is managing the unfolding Ukraine crisis, both reassuring European NATO allies that treaty obligations will be honored, while maintaining constant communications with Russian counterparts, to assure there are no miscalculations leading to conflict. Gen. Dempsey, clearly aware of the boundaries between military advice and political decision-making, did not attempt to under-play the danger of conflict, particularly given the occupant of the White House.

Asked by an aggressive Woodruff what kind of message the US is trying to send to Russia, Gen. Dempsey calmly replied that “We're clearly trying to send a message to Russia, almost exclusively through diplomatic channels, so that I do have an open line with my Russian counterpart that I have used twice the last two days.

“But we're trying to tell them not to escalate this thing further into Eastern Ukraine and allow the conditions to be set for some kind of resolution in the Crimea. But the message we are sending militarily is to our NATO allies.read on...